The real deal

Real estate is booming, so why are so few developers on the Top 100 list of B.C.’s biggest companies? Mainly because revenue, our basis for ranking companies, is one bit of information few developers are willing to disclose.

But it also has to do with how the revenues of development companies are calculated. Residential developers – the most obvious candidates to rank among the major corporate players in the province – typically don’t receive the majority of sales revenue from pre-sales until a project completes. more...

Dude, where's my car?

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This old house

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Tough love

The learning curve of a philanthropist, the Bentalls are discovering, is expensive. “It’s so much easier to make money than it is to give it away,” Bob Bentall tells me. Bentall, a multimillionaire and former CEO and chairman of the Bentall Corp., is 85. He has been trying for over 20 years to give away his income but often gathers more than the $3 million the Cedar Foundation can shovel out annually.

The foundation, run out of a stylish 12th-floor office in (where else?) Bentall Centre’s fourth tower, will spend a planned total of $100 million over 35 years. more...

Long walk home

In Vancouver real estate is a sport. It’s what we talk about at dinner parties, the way Angelinos gossip about movies or Calgarians gush about oil. It’s our über-metaphor: the thing we talk about when we talk about ourselves. And it’s how we keep score; anyone who’s owned a home in Vancouver during the past decade has a one-that-got-away story. more...